Prey
by PsuedoSith
Summary: A routine mission gone awry, a reluctant conscript soldier more at home in a library than on the front lines, an exiled predator huntress, and a nest full of artificially enhanced xenomorphs.  Above it all, Weyland-Yutani corporation harbors a vile secre.


_**Prey**_

_**I don't own either one of the Predator, or Alien franchises. However, the characters used in this story are original. **_

_**Rated M for language, especially in the opening chapter, violence throughout, and possibly sexual content in one chapter. I'll have to see where the story goes on that last one. If you're offended by reading about sex, don't worry; I'll warn you in advance of any offending chapters.**_

A routine mission on an outlying colony world. A simple bug hunt for one isolated Xenomorph drone. Expected low resistance, no casualties. For Miles, the mission can't be over soon enough. An untested, drafted rookie with no prior experience has no place in a squad of heavily armed marines. He just wants to get the mission over with and return to Earth, return to his family. But in the shadows, greater danger lingers than any could have expected. A starved and voracious enemy lurks unseen. It becomes clear that the mission isn't what it at first appears, the Xenomorphs have adapted, and a lone predator huntress stalks both human and alien. Over it all, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation executes their soulless plan...

_**If I get enough good reviews, I'll consider self-publishing this.**_

**Audio Diary 01:**

**They don't tell you when you sign up for their 'free' scholarship, that they dump your name in the draft roster. They don't want you to know; that's why it's in such tiny print on the back of the last page. I never even saw it, but that didn't stop them from pulling me to active duty up halfway through college. And here I am now. Locked in cryo-sleep aboard the **_**U.S Temperance**_**. With the best of the best. The colonial marines. [bitter laugh] The top three percent; that's what I scored on my high school standardized tests. You know the intelligence department had their eye on that since fifth grade. But intelligence didn't get me; just my luck, a xeno outbreak on Darius IV left this squad of the marines with a short lineup. 32nd**** squad; the self-proclaimed Bug Busters, took me in to replace their tactical officer. **

**It's unnerving to think that in a month I could die on some piss-poor rock called Thedoth II, in the Trigueron Cluster. It might not take a month, even. Could be a week. Hell, this shuttle could blow up on takeoff and I could be back home for the funeral service tomorrow. **

**[stern, interrupting voice]**

"**Shut the hell up 'sarge', if that is your real fucking name, which I doubt. Oh, yep. Call your superiors. Insubordination, right? [Sighs] My name's Miles, anyway. Quiet guy, bookworm, nerd. Nice guy. I'm not usually like this, I'm just really pissed off right now. **

**I only have a few minutes, as long as it takes the to get here. They'll shove me in cryo early, doesn't really matter… Back to the diary, I'm not supposed to give my last name or address. Security protocol. Apparently, I also can't say anything that could demoralize the public to the war effort. But you know what, screw that. I'm sure they'll sensor the hell out of this, but don't touch their 'free' fucking scholarship. Stay the hell away from it, and next time, Ripley, instead of freezing the goddamn alien queen so it can drift away and hit another planet, just shoot it it's fucking head off. **

**And.. That's nearly everything. Mom, Dad, if you ever actually get this, just… I love you. Just.. Know that, at least. I'll do my best to get back home as soon as possible. And, … Oh. The ... ****[Loud impact.] [Device end.] **

**Chapter One; Death's Door**

Miles woke to the sound of a wailing siren and blinding florescent lights. He coughed, his heart beat rapidly in his chest. It felt weak. His throat was dry and sore. Through the smudged and grimy pyrex canopy of his cryo-chamber, he could see a human shape drifting by in front of him, clad in a white jumpsuit, a pinprick of light held in it's hand.

Miles' mind worked hard to process this. No easy task; it felt like his skull was on fire. Bringing up a hand to rub his head, he found the patch of blood, now long-dried. He nearly smiled as the memory came back to him. The M.P's had clubbed him in the head and shoved him in cryo. Needless to say, nothing had healed in stasis. No wonder he felt so terrible. An unsavory combination of head wound, and cryo-sickness. The siren… wasn't a wake up call. In cryo, all you needed to wake up was a change in atmospheric composition within the chamber and a jolt through the electrode hooked up to his head. And judging from how the man before him was drifting, floating, he could only assume they'd lost artificial gravity.

With a sudden whoosh, the roof of the cryo-chamber slid open, and the man in white was hovering over Miles, shining a flashlight in his eyes, blinding him instantly.

"Track the beam with your eyes." The man instructed calmly. "We need to see if you've suffered long-term damage from cryogenesis." His voice was emotionless, level. Scientific.

"That would be fine." Miles said through gritted teeth, and turned his head from the light. "If I wasn't blinded right now. Go check on someone else. Come back when my eyes are adjusted."

The man shrugged, and pulled himself along the cryo-tanks to the right of the beleaguered conscript. He drifted effortlessly down to the next subject.

Miles sighed and looked back up at the ceiling, blinking and squinting to gradually stare directly at the light. He glanced down at his chest, and unbuckled the restraints there. After easing himself up into the air, he glanced back over at the doctor, now five patients away.

"Who are you?" He asked. "And what's going on? Why did we lose gravity?"

"Hell's gate." The doctor answered simply. Seeing that Miles was confused, he explained further. "There's only one 'safe' passage down to Thedoth; a narrow gap in the asteroid field surrounding the planet. It's only open once every three weeks, and the gravity and magnetism in this channel play hell with our systems. It's like threading the eye of a needle while blindfolded. That's why they named it Hell's gate. Oh, and I'm Templar. Android. And Chief medical officer of the Temperance."

Miles drifted over to him, employing the same method of grab and pull used by the android, and shook the doctors hand. "It's a pleasure."

The android stared at him strangely. "You are employing sarcasm, am I correct?"

"Not really." Miles answered. "Not about meeting you anyway, it's just that… I don't think you could have picked a worse time to wake us up."

"Yeah doc!" A shrill, lisped voice spoke out from the Cry-tank in front of Templar. A thin, mousy looking man with a bowl-haircut and sandy colored hair stuck his head out of the chamber. "Wha' the hell ya' thinking, wakin' us up in an asteroid field? If We're gonna' die, I at least wanna die comfortable!"

Miles looked at Templar questioningly.

"His name's Mouse." Templar explained evenly. "Demolition expert for 32nd squad. He may have a poor vocabulary, but he knows every explosive device created since 1980. As you're the new tactical officer, he'll be your primary man when you need to obliterate something in a precise and cinematic way."

"This chump ism our new T.O?" Mouse said loudly, squinting at Miles. "Don' look like he can shoot a gun! Looks downright lame!" He met Miles' eyes. "Hey lamey, that can be yer name! Lamey! You like that?"

"Not particularly." Miles said flatly. Mouse strongly reminded him of annoying bullies in elementary school.

Mouse shrugged. "I'll run it ba the guys. See what they thenk."

At that moment, the ship lurched around them, flinging Mouse back down into his pod, sending Templar and Miles nearly into the wall.

"What the hell was that?" Miles asked in alarm.

Templar looked around, and answered nonchalantly; "Probably an asteroid impact. By the sound, I'd say it was a small one. It's probably nothing to worry about." He turned his gaze back to Miles. "Why don't you go down to the mess hall. Get yourself some breakfast. Meet the rest of the 32nd. It's your third right down corridor 91-b. Cryo-sickness can turn ugly, and by ugly I mean difficult to clean up if you let it go on an empty stomach, so heed my warning. I'll stay here and wake up the rest of the 43rd. The briefing's in twenty minutes, so eat quickly." How casually he said this stunned Miles. They were in an asteroid field on their way down to a planet containing at least one pissed off Xenomorph.

Miles remembered his way around the ship well enough from the first day he'd gotten there, twelve hours before he'd been knocked on the head with a flashlight and shoved into cryo. It was a piece of shit. Three months later, just outside Thedoth's atmosphere, the conditions weren't any better. The engines were on the fritz, now the artificial gravity was dead and he was pulling himself along a dingy corridor by the light fixtures. Squads of marines in both directions traversed the ship by way of the power conduits bolted to the walls. Live, and highly confused cockroaches floated aimlessly in midair every few meters.

Miles had gone into Cryo fully dressed in his uniform, breaking protocol, so he didn't need to change. He still wished that he could find a shower somewhere, he didn't have time with the impending briefing. Wistfully, he followed Templar's instructions.

The mess hall was nearly empty; only three marines sat there now, together at a far bench. The room's tables, luckily, were bolted to the ground. The food, on the other hand, wasn't so fortunate. Particles of gray mush hung in the air above the scraped-clean trays of the four, a reminder of the asteroid strike from minutes earlier.

As he entered, Miles kept his head down and his gaze fixed on his boots. He could feel the eyes of the others on him as he crossed the room, took a bowl of slop from an irate looking cook, and pulled himself down into a seat at an empty table.

The slop was cold and disgusting; some kind of rice mixture, maybe. It slithered down his throat and nearly made him gag with every bite, but he still gathered his nerves and forced it down one bite at a time.

"You're actually eating that shit?" A person from the table across from him questioned.

Miles looked up, surprised. "Attempting to, anyway." He answered shakily. He'd never been very good at talking to people. Long silences permeated his speech as he thought of something funny or interesting to say, and they tended to discourage most people from hanging around.

"I'm Jakob Walker. Call me Ranger." The speaker continued. "I'm the resident sniper of the Bug Busters." He was a lean, muscular looking soldier with a short-cropped haircut and a short chin stubble. He looked just like most of the advertisements which so foolishly portrayed the colonial marines as honorable and respectful. His appearance was a strict, regulated one. Miles gathered that he was most likely the squad leader. At least, after the T.O.

"Chuck Norris." A larger, older and, stockier middle-eastern man with a mullet volunteered with a smile. "Really. It's my name. My folks named me after him. Just call me Gear. I'm the mechanic and machine gunner here. You need something fixed, come to me. And the lovely creature to my right is Luka Vallincourt. Rifleman and computer operator. Hacker too, if the need arises. She's shy, but she warms up to you after a while."

"I'm known as Wolf around here." Luka said with a smile from the far left of the bench. She had not-quite shoulder length and spiky silvery hair. Despite this, she didn't seem to be any more than a year or two older than Miles.

"Mouse, Templar, Ranger, Gear, and Wolf." Miles recited. "It's going to take forever to remember that."

"You met Mouse and Templar already?" Gear asked, interested. "Don't worry about Mouse's… peculiar habits. He doesn't really mean anything he says. He lost his brother, a few years back. It wound him a bit to tight."

"And you are?" Wolf inquired curiously.

"Miles Grimm." Miles answered. "I'm… I think I'm your knew Tactical Officer."

"How much combat experience you have?" Gear asked.

"None." Miles answered. "I was drafted. They shoved me in cryo early."

"Hence the blood in your hair." Luka noted intelligently.

"Drafted?" Ranger said distastefully. "What the hell is a draftee doing in my outfit?"

This wrong-footed Miles. "I signed up for a college scholarship. I was transferred here. That's all I know. Then they hit me in the head with a flashlight and shoved me in cryo. I was supposed to go through basic on this flight."

"Damn it!" Ranger exclaimed, bringing his fist down on the table. He turned to Gear. "I told them no conscripts. I fucking told them, not in my outfit! They have no fucking respect for me, for any of us…"

"Calm down Walker." Templar said sharply.

Miles looked over at the door. The Android was standing in the doorway, Mouse trailing not far behind.

The gravity systems chose that moment to kick back in, and with a lurch, everyone in the room was dumped wherever they happened to be hanging. Trays of mush banged on the tables and tipped. Miles nearly got a face full as the bleak globules showered down with disgusting, nearly comical plopping noises.

Mouse groaned loudly. "It always picks the worst times."

Around the room, the soldiers were picking themselves up. Ranger offered his hand to Luka, though Miles noted that she ignored it completely. A look of anger flashed across the sniper's face.

Templar hadn't even fallen, he just stood there, a faintly amused expression on his face. And he resumed talking without missing a beat, though Miles guessed that no one other than himself was really listening at that point.

"The kid is a draftee. You're upset, but that's alright. No one likes what happened to Henderson, but it's all of our jobs right now to keep the kid safe, and make sure that he doesn't wind up the same way. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with command. I guarantee you, since they lost the battleship Corrion, they're not in a friendly mood. They won't want to hear about it. Now, in the mean time, our orders have been changed."

"Since when?" Ranger snapped.

"Since four minutes ago." Templar replied firmly. "My processor received a message from Colonel Sorn, on the surface of the planet. According to him, they have a confirmed xenomorph presence. How large the hive is, they don't know, but they suspect that it's been operating since July, and so far, twenty colonists have been reported as missing. You all know that if there are indeed twenty xenos on that rock, then the colony is in danger of being completely overrun. Weyland-Yutani Corporation won't allow that; the mines on the surface are far too valuable. And as such, two other squads will be sent planet-side along with you. The 98th will secure the mines nearest the colony, and place tripwires to deter any xeno ambushes. They will then begin to patrol the wilderness of the planet and root out individual xenos. The 73rd will take up positions in the colony itself and safeguard the civilians. They will also attempt to gather more information on how many of the bugs we're up against. We will be dropping with them in the colony, but we will make our way to the terraforming centers, and secure important leaders and intelligence. At the conclusion of all three operations, the two other squads will link up with you, and you will spearhead an assault into the xeno hive, which we suspect to be in the lower portions of the mines. Hopefully by then, we'll have a better idea of where exactly it is. And as a final note, you're briefing has been canceled. This is it. They need us down there ASAP. Any questions?"

"Yeah." Ranger said bitterly. "Who's in charge of this op?"

"Colonel Sorn is in overall command." Templar answered. "Followed by myself. Then, it's the kid."

"He's ahead of me?" Ranger exclaimed. "I have fifty times the experience of him!"

"It's only a precaution, of course." Templar said reassuringly. "The chances of both I and the Colonel dieing are minimal. And Grimm is the tactical officer. Procedure dictates that he rank above the resident sharpshooter. You know protocol, Sergeant."

"No briefing?" Luka said warily. "That's illegal, isn't it?"

Templar cracked a smile. "Since when does anyone on this squad care about legal?

Now, we leave in ten minutes. I suggest you suit up, lock and load, and be ready for the drop."

Miles was thrown off balance by these remarks. What exactly did Templar mean by 'legal'?

Ten minutes. Miles' stomach lurched, reminding him that cryo-sickness was still affecting him. He supposed that he would have needed to eat more than a few bites of slop to abate the symptoms. His body needed some energy and time to recalibrate and reach it's full condition again. Staring at the gun rack in front of him, laden with various shiny instruments of death, Miles suddenly realized just how far in over his head that he was. He couldn't lead soldiers! He hadn't even gone through basic training. He was quite literally, a civilian pulled off the street due to some questionable draft business and an urgent need for a tactical officer. Combat knives, VP78 pistols enabled with a fully automatic firing mode. Zx-76 shotguns, and M41A/2 Pulse Rifles equipped with under slung grenade launchers. M59/B Smart guns, M260B Flamethrowers, and M42C scoped rifles rounded out the arsenal. He only recognized them because, essentially, he recognized most technology built in modern history. He'd never even fired an automatic weapon before. He doubted that he could lift the Smart gun. What the hell was the military doing with him? A thought occurred to him. There was only one possible thing; he was intended to be the brains of the operation. Of course. He'd studied Xenomorph behavior and species as a hobby for years. Their tactics, habits, tricks, he knew everything there was to know about them. He was weak, untrained, but the brass had seen an opportunity to gain an intelligence and support officer without actually having to replace a skilled one if the operation went south. They were using him as a portable data source for their soldiers. He was actually more relaxed now. No reason to waste resources training someone who's only purpose it was to advise. Tactical Officer. He reminded himself. Not a soldier. Still, he might as well have the means to defend himself. He seized a pulse rifle and pistol from the weapon rack, slinging the rifle over his back and attaching the pistol and holster to his left hip. That done, he shrugged off the heavy and uncomfortable composite armor he wore, leaving on his uniform and fatigues.

Templar stared at him. "What are you doing?"

"This armor won't stop a xenomorph's teeth, acid, or tail." Miles replied, taking a few clips of ammunition. "It's worthless against the bugs. The only thing that its going to do is slow me down when we invariably need to run."

Templar seemed confused. "Run?"

"The Xenomorphs fight by mass rush and ambush tactics." Miles answered. "and they take dozens of bullets to bring down. I'm sure anyone in this squad can attest to that."

"Actually they can't." Templar replied.

Miles looked around at them, confused.

"This is our first bug hunt." Luka explained. "Our moniker may be somewhat misleading. Bug Busters, after all, makes it sound… like we hunt bugs. Really, our experience is limited to terrorists and Korea."

"Oh." Miles said, dumbstruck. "Then Bug Busters was… a clever way of calling terrorists bugs."

Gear nodded.

"Then there are a few things you should know." Miles said, gaining a rare bit of confidence. He turned to face the larger part of the group. "Xenos leave a slimy residue on the surfaces they touch, but it evaporates quickly. If you see it around, then a bug was there recently. They climb on walls, ceilings, anything. And limb shots are nearly useless. They don't react much to pain. Their torsos are heavily armored, and having open circulatory systems, bleeding doesn't hinder them much. Aim for their head. Large trauma in one region; don't spread your shots around. Injury doesn't slow them down. Only death."

"Look at this genius." Ranger said sourly. "And where do you get your experience? I thought you didn't have any combat under your belt."

"I don't." Miles replied hesitantly.

"Then you got this out of a book!" Ranger laughed.

"Yeah…" Mouse hissed. "We don' need books heah." A dark expression crossed his face as he seized an explosive charge from a shelf by his elbow. "There's somthin screwy about these bombs." He said, a look of confusion flickering across his face. "They don't feel right. Them too light."

"Don't get paranoid now." Ranger snapped in response. "The only thing screwy here is why I got stuck with an untrained draftee on this mission."

"He looks like he can handle a gun." Luka said fairly. "His reasoning is sound. Perhaps not the point about the armor, but he knows xeno tactics."

"The only gun he can handle is made out of meat and attached to his crotch." Ranger said with a sneer. "Breaking protocol is a good way to die. Don't let him psych you out."

Miles felt his face growing somewhat red. Embarrassment. He would have thought that he'd be used to it by now, slogging through one terrible school year after another.

"The kid's right." Luka said suddenly, unexpectedly. "I completely agree with everything he just said."

"Awe, Luka." Ranger said. "Don't take his side. And don't ever let me see you drop that armor. We have a job to do, and one dead weight is enough as it is."

Gear shrugged. "I trust Wolf."

"I'm keeping my armor on." Luka said with a shaky laugh.

"Good." Ranger said shortly. "Now lets move here. Five minutes people!"

They filed from the armory one by one, until at the end, Miles moved to leave. A raised arm stopped him.

"Wise." Templar commented, lowering his arm as Miles paused. "Good advice, I mean. And don't mind Ranger. He hates draftees. Hasn't had a good history with them. He doesn't like androids much either." Templar smiled faintly. "Nearly got me killed on our first mission. He ordered me to run out in front of our line as a decoy. Androids are resilient, but we can't take that much fire and keep running. I refused, and after a while, he accepted me. He'll get used to you."

"After he orders me to run out and tackle a Xenomorph?" Miles asked skeptically.

Templar chuckled. "You're his commanding officer. He can't order you to do anything unless he puts a gun to your head."

Somehow that touching wisdom didn't make Miles feel much safer.

The landing craft was beat to hell.

If this mission was so important, why weren't they supplied with newer gear? Miles wondered as he stepped aboard the rickety craft. A standard gunship with folding wings. Light armor, but high-thrust engines. It's armament was good, a few dozen homing missiles. Assuming they still worked.

"everyone aboard." Templar ordered as the soldiers filed into the craft. "Stay tight when we hit the surface. And no large caliber rounds or grenades when we're inside the terraforming center. We can't risk damaging the equipment."

Miles sank down on the far end of the flat unforgiving metal bench, adrenaline flooding his body, making him shake. He felt like he was about to puke. He was in a combat drop. He felt dizzy, and the craft hadn't even moved yet. He fumbled for the buckles of his seat, and locked himself in place. But they were built for someone stronger than him, someone heavier. He had a good two inches of slack, even with the tethers at minimum length.

He could die. What was he doing? Why was he there? He was beginning to think that it could be worth the prison time to desert now, before the drop.

He was unpleasantly surprised when Luka took the seat next to him. Mostly because now he knew that if he threw up, most of the substance that missed him would hit her. He wasn't the only one worried; Ranger didn't seem too happy about the arrangement either.

"Is everyone strapped in?" Templar asked, walking through the center aisle to the cockpit.

He turned back to the controls, and with the flip of switch, vibrations shook the vessel and lights across the hull glowed to life. The engines began to emit a low drone.

"The planet's landing pads were damaged." Templar said loudly as the sound of the engines rose to a roar. "They don't know what did it. Xenomorphs never attack structures. Right now, they suspect sabotage. So we'll be landing in a converted clearing roughly a half-mile from the colony. The area isn't secure, so keep your wits about you."

"Brilliant." Miles remarked sardonically. This mission was going from intimidating, to suicide, to fucked up far too quickly for comfort. He checked the ammo counter on his gun. Broken. The light was dead, and the glass was cracked. He swore under his breath. There was no turning back now; he could only hope that it would still fire.

With the whining squeal of hydraulic pumps, the door at the rear of the craft slide shut.

"Is the drop going to be bad?" Miles asked Luka, his voice nearly lost in the sound of the rasping engines. He felt vibrations in his gut, nearly shaking him. His teeth were chattering, and he clamped his mouth shut. The roar and shudder of the engines was overpowering.

"You get used t….."

The rest of her words were cut off instantly as the ship plummeted downward, the actual opening of the docking bay doors lost in the background noise of the ship. Miles' stomach punched upward into his throat, his skin and muscles pulled upward on his thin frame as the overwhelming g-forces forced everything upward. Blood pressure built in his brain at the same time Luka let out a shocked scream.

Blood pounded in his head, screams rang in his ears, and the overwhelming, choking roar of the engines blared constantly, driving away all rational thought for the first precarious moments.

Miles, through tremendous effort, attempted to force his head down; his gaze was steadily shifting toward the ceiling.

How long is it going to last? He wondered as the pungent scent of rocket propellant filled his nostrils.

Propellant? He thought, confused. Are we firing?

He tore his gaze off of the lights at the ceiling, and forced them to the cockpit windshield.

"Holy shit, this is intense!" Gear shouted, his loudest bellow barely audible.

Slowly, the noise in the craft was mellowing as Templar eased back on the throttle.

"Sorry." He said, his gaze unwavering, still fixed out in front of the vessel. "Magnetic spike. I mistimed the drop. Thought I could beat it. It tore us down. Nearly took our right engine off."

Miles' heart was pounding insanely fast in his chest. A the g-forces lessened, his face twisted into a new involuntary expression of horror and shock.

"You… you.. You.." He said, suddenly out of breath, disoriented and exhausted. His vision blurred as the blood rushed away from his brain and back into his extremities. It let him feel suddenly how icy cold they were, how unresponsive they were. He couldn't get a word out; they died in his throat. All of his air was going directly to his lungs and bloodstream. He realized that he'd been holding his breath, and exhaled deeply. Their descent was normalizing now, a slow , steady pace. Still, there was no denying the jerks and pulls in the ship's path. Complements of the magnetic fields in the rocks around them.

"You thought you could beat it?" He spluttered finally. And in this decrepit ship! He could have killed them!

"Shut up and relax." Ranger said with a laugh, pounding his chest with a closed fist. "Whoah, what a rush!"

Miles stared at him in disbelief. Mouse let out a choked, nervous laugh. Luka smiled faintly, but it disappeared quickly. "That was an idiotic thing to do."

"My calculations were off by 0.0000000023." Templar said easily. "A fluke. It won't happen again."

Miles sniffed. He smelled more rocket propellant.

"Are we firing?" He asked curiously. He could barely hear anything; his ears were still ringing.

Luka looked around in concern. "It smells like we are. Is there a fuel leak? Run a diagnostic."

Ranger glanced around, and a troubled look crossed his face. "Damn, the conscript's right. We're leaking something."

Templar looked back at them. "Diagnostic's not reading anything wrong with the ship."

"Nothing?" Miles asked uneasily. "I thought you just said we nearly tore the engine off."

"It's strange." Templar replied. "But there's nothing on the readings. It could be a leak from the capital ship. Probably nothing to worry about."

The craft continued to descend without much trouble, and Miles adjusted his view back to the cockpit windshield. The name 'Hell's Gate' was a well deserved one. Asteroids of rough stone stretched into infinity for as far as the eye could see, some marble sized, some as large as small moons. The jagged rocks floated haphazardly, and spectacularly, hundreds of thin stone spikes formed and dissolved continually on their surfaces.

"Magnetism at it's most dangerous." Templar explained, noticing Miles' gaze. "The polarity is constantly shifting depending on where the larger planetoids are in the field. This path is the only safe one through. And it's only open for another twenty-four hours. We'll be spending a week or two on this planet after we complete our mission."

"Incredible." Ranger said sourly. "Three weeks on a dead ball of rock."

Miles looked back out the window. They were descending rapidly, straight down through a narrow path in the field. Not far away, Miles could see a cloudy, milky expanse of dust approaching, hiding the planet below from view. He was sure he would have been awed if he could see more than the width of a window.

"Not dead rock." Templar answered. "The terraforming process has made some headway. There are jungles and plant life in some of the valleys. Like the one we'll be landing in."

They were entering the atmosphere, and Templar lowered the speed of the craft dramatically, causing the ship to shake.

"Why we slowin?" Mouse accused.

"This ship is in rough shape." Templar answered. "If I go in at normal speed, we might rip it apart."

The ship began to shake as they continued further down into the atmosphere. Miles gritted his teeth and forced bile down. Cryo sickness. The windshield was milky and nearly opaque now.

"Nice and easy…" Templar muttered. He looked back at them. "The atmosphere is thick, mostly Nitrogen."

"Fascinating." Ranger remarked, appearing entirely uninterested.

Suddenly, a rapid beeping caught Mile's ear. "Is that… the fuel warning?" He asked.

Templar's gaze snapped back to the controls. "No. We have ninety percent fuel."

Ranger leaned forward. "No, that sounds like the fuel warning."

"Impossible." Templar said, squinting at the controls. "Damn it. Why…?"

The ship rocked heavily, throwing the weapons and gear from their racks. The beeping rose to a wail, and the engine's tone climbed to a grating whine.

"Hang on!" Templar shouted. "We just ran out of power. We're running on fumes now."

Miles looked around, saw nothing to hang on to, and grabbed the back of the vacant co-pilot's chair.

"It's going to be a rough landing." Templar continued his voice growing level. "But our chances of survival are sixty-eight percent. We likely won't die here."

Gear and Ranger braced themselves against the floor and ceiling of the craft. In any case, their harnesses fit snuggly. They'd be fine, provided the ship didn't utterly compress on impact. Mouse seized the Pilot's chair. Luka looked around frantically; her harnesses had easily enough slack to slam her head against any one of a dozen sharp objects, and there was nothing near her to hang on to.

"Here!" Miles offered, stretching out an arm. The ship was tilting dangerously now, and gaining speed. The g-forces were pulling Luka back.

Miles stretched in his harness, snagged her hand, and pulled her back towards the front of the craft. Instantly, she wrapped her arms around him and seized the co-pilot's seat.

With a final kick and sputter, the engines died, and the ship was in freefall.

Templar seized the controls, manually wrenching on them in a vain attempt to level the thing out. Miles stared at the wind shield in horror as the obscuring clouds rushed by, then, utterly disappeared. He gasped. They were… a solid mile above the ground. The planet stretched away into the distance, and huge, arching spikes of black stone; a result of magnetic forces, arched upward to form lethally sharp spears as tall as multi-story buildings. And the entire ship was falling straight for them.

"I will deploy emergency parachutes on the craft as we near the surface." Templar said firmly.

Miles gritted his teeth as the ship continued it's freefall. The ground was rushing dangerously close. They were nearly level with a high spine of mountains in the distance.

Miles closed his eyes.

The course of the ship remained unchanged for a few moments, but abruptly, there was a loud screaming of metal. A roaring tear that cause him to unwilling open his eyes. He looked around again just in time to see one of the vehicle's weapon arms tear off and flip away wildly.

Immediately, the entire gunship lurched a and tilted dangerously as it fell level to the magnetic spires.

It was spinning now, disorienting Miles further. Seeing much of anything was impossible as they plummeted toward the unforgiving planet below.

Suddenly, there was an unrecognizable sound, a kind of flapping and billowing noise. Miles barely had time to realize that the parachutes must have opened before the ship slowed abruptly, throwing everyone inside against the walls, and then smashed tail first into the ground.


End file.
